RESOURCES

The Trouble with GMOs

Jeffrey Smith is the founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which has been leading the fight to have GMO foods labeled. In this very informative video, he discusses how we ended up with so many GMO contaminated foods on the market and the risks they pose to human health. The video can be viewed in four 15 minute segments.

This issue is such a crucial one. It really is worth the time to watch and share this information.

UPDATE

The issue of GMO’s in our food supply is getting some much needed attention in the past year, thanks in great part to the November 2012 election where Californians were able to get an initiative on the ballot, Prop 37, that if passed, would have required all foods containing GMOs to be labeled on the package. This would have given Californians the choice of whether or not they wanted to consume these foods and be willing participants in this experiment. The prevailing thought was that if the initiative passed in California, it would spread to the other states quickly and then up into Canada. Although the initiative was very narrowly defeated, it did bring the issue to the mainstream, and we have since seen many other states introduce similar legislation.

Here is a list of the companies that funded the No side, preventing consumers from knowing what is in their food, led by GMO manufacturer Monsanto, along with the amount of money they contributed:

Monsanto - $7,100,500

DuPont - $4,900,000

Pepsi - $2,145,400

Bayer - $2,000,000

Dow - $2,000,000

BASF - $2,000,000

Syngenta - $2,000,000

Kraft Foods - $1,950,000

Coca-Cola - $1,455,500

Nestle - $1,315,600

General Mills - $1,135,000

ConAgra - $1,077,000

Kellogg’s - $790,000

Smithfield - $684,000

It is particularly notable to mention that much of these funds were poured into the anti-Prop 37 campaign in the final weeks before voting, when these large companies realized they were headed for a loss. Despite the final outcome, the Yes side, at last count, lost by a slim margin of 3%, (December 14th was the final date after which results had to be officially registered), the upside is that the issue of GMO’s which had been pretty much unknown to most of the American population, has now become a mainstream issue. Increased awareness about our food supply is always a good thing.

One interesting note here is that since Europe had successfully passed legislation requiring foods containing GMOs to be labeled, all foods created by the companies listed above that are destined for the European market are manufactured without GMO ingredients.

This next video is a recent interview (September 2013) done with Dr. Mercola and Jeffrey Smith, where Jeffrey provides a very encouraging status on the efforts to have GMOs labelled. He believes we are now at the tipping point where more and more consumers are choosing the non-GMO containing food brands over the GMO food brands. What is needed is for the profit driven food manufacturers to see that the non-GMO brands are outselling the GMO brands, and they will be quick to change their ways.